“The collagist must pre-empt the reception of visual information, manipulate the associations each element brings and orchestrate their interaction with one another and the viewer.” O’Reilly, S (2008, p.19) 1
Assembling Worlds II presents a selection of predominantly new work by Brisbane based artists, Rachael Bartram and Warren Handley. Rachael and Warren met at the Queensland College of Art in 2006 whilst studying the BA Visual Media (major in Fine Art). Both went on to complete the Honours degree and achieve a first-class grade. After graduating from university, they participated a number of different shows and group events until in 2011, they organised their first joint show at Jugglers Art Space Inc. The exhibition was titled Assembling Worlds and presented a combined body of work consisting entirely of digital and handmade Collage. Assembling Worlds II follows on from their first exhibition and likewise in this show the contrast between handmade Collage and digital Collage are again evident as is the distinct methodological approach of both artists. In short, their individual concepts and process-based digressions once again collide together to literally assemble two places or worlds together. This is especially evident with regards to the collaborative works made exclusively for Assembling Worlds II.
Collage or Assemblage as it is also known, is intrinsic to the work of both artists. Rachael re-contextualises found imagery using a meticulous method of collecting, slicing and intersecting cut-outs by hand. In contrast, Warren’s process involves a digital form of Collage whereby the use of a computer is fundamental to the extraction, abstraction and remixing of found imagery. Both processes lead to carefully considered compositions, transforming the original two-dimensional materials into often surreal and contemplative scapes.
Conceptually Assembling Worlds II presents a collision of two realities to the viewer. In Rachael’s work, a fine line exists between what appears to be a dream world and actuality. While the artist has explored issues of gender and sexism, identity and reflexivity – many of her recent works have delved more into her self-analysis of her own emotional flux. An additional manipulation of fictional and non-fictional materials (e.g. old National Geographic issues), challenges further consideration of world events/issues (retrospective and current). Where as Warren’s work explores ideas of form and spatiality, shining a light on how we experience and then re-interpret three-dimensional space through geometry. As with much of his VJing work, these mediative and often psychedelic compositions sit within the fringes of two worlds. These could be described as the everyday waking experience of space against the infinite experience of space through the minds eye, from the macro scale to the micro.
1 O’Reilly, S, Lillington, D, Monroe, I, 2008, Collage – Assembling Contemporary Art, Black Dog Publishing, London.
Image: Pensive IV (Reef Room) 2014. Collage by Rachael Bartram and Warren Handley
